Heart of Red
by DumaFire
Summary: Okay! This is a Humanstuck fanfiction, in which Karkat has a heart disorder and his family abuses him. He also gets bullied because of his attitude. -WIP- -Graphic Descriptions of Violence-
1. Chapter 1

_-~.:Heart of Red:.~-_

A Humanstuck fanfiction by Claws1010

_-~.:Chapter 1:~-_

"How pathetic. You're always getting your panties in a bunch!" one of them yelled. Karkat grumbled to himself. Great, the school gang was going after him once again. They usually just taunted him whenever he found himself alone, probably scared of his 'older brother.' Of course, Karkat wasn't related to anyone at all, really. He was an orphan, living in a foster home. Not to mention it was the worst foster home of all time. His foster parents didn't care for his well-being whatsoever. They just wanted the money to buy alcohol and cigarettes. He couldn't do anything though—he had wanted to run away so many times, but he couldn't because his brother wouldn't let him. Gamzee knew that if Karkat ran away—he would eventually run out of pills for the heart condition that had haunted him for the longest time.

Secrets. Karkat felt like he kept too many of them. After all, he didn't want to give the school gang even more reasons to pick on him. They already hated him for his crabby personality, and he didn't want to worsen their bullying. They were the type of people who wouldn't care if they knew he were an orphan, or that he had a heart condition. He believed this because they would often pick on one of his other classmates, Tavros, for not being able to use his legs. They soon gave up, though. Tavros was impossible to anger, and the gang had no reason to pick on someone who doesn't react. That, and the rumors that they only bothered him because Vriska, the leader of the gang, didn't like him. When Vriska lost interest in picking on him, so did the gang. Although, she usually wasn't around the hallways this early, due to her habit of coming in late every morning.

That brings us back to the present. Karkat continued to grumble curses under his breath as the others shouted empty insults at him. "Retarded!" "Dumbass!" "Pathetic weakling!" "Fucker!" "Poor!" "Disgusting!" "Filthy!" And so on. "Shut up you pathetic wasteshits of skin, you don't even fucking deserve my time! If anything, you can't even tie your own shoelaces without Vriska's help! You're all fucktards!" Karkat yells. The biggest member of the group snickered, approaching him. "You think you're so tough, don't you?" he grinned. The other members of the group began to circle around Karkat, leaving him no room to escape. "I can take on all of you! Especially you, you fuckwaste of a... a..." He flinched, gripping his chest. He felt a snapping sensation of some sort, and gasped a little. "What's wrong, you too scared to finish your own sentences?" The big guy laughed. Karkat gripped at the wall, falling on his knees and pressing both hands against his chest. The other members of the group raised their eyebrows—the same person they were about to fight… Was… What was he even doing? Karkat cringed—feeling the deep pain in his chest practically split him in two. Everything went black.

It didn't take long for the school's security guards to show—hearing the commotion that followed. They had managed to find the group, who were kicking at Karkat while the boy was unconscious. The school police had to separate the gang from his bruised body, and there was one member that refused to stop wailing on him. Karkat was dragged off to the nurse's office, and they lay him down on the bed beside the wall. She took his temperature, noting that it was higher than it should be. She also measured his heartbeat, finding his to be irregular, and breating much too frequent.

Gamzee took a while to arrive at the nurses office, hands in his pockets and bottles of Faygo visible in his open backpack. The nurse had called his classroom, seeing that both his and Karkat's foster parents wouldn't pick up the phone. They were trying to contact anyone they could, even if it was a fourteen-year-old. After all, there was only one person left who could know what was happening to Karkat, and that had to be his 'brother.' Seeing Karkat on the bed, Gamzee felt that he knew what was happening. It had happened a few times before, when Karkat's heart started beating too quickly. "His heart had one of those motherfuckin' moments again," he says, sitting down on a chair beside the bed. "Give him some of them motherfuckin' pills for it, and he'll get better," he declares. The nurses, not really sure of what he meant, consulted his medical file. They learned about his medical condition, and grew worried.

The nurses couldn't do much, and Gamzee wasn't able to describe the pills that Karkat took. It was obvious that the nurses were planning to send Karkat to the hospital. They had almost called an ambulance before they heard Karkat begin to stir. He tried to move about and sit up, despite the condition he was in. He wasn't able to move very much, and so the nurses tried to calm him down. Karkat slapped them away, cursing at them in a delusional state. "Don't you fucking call an ambulance... It will do more harm than good... fuck off... don't... don't touch me..." During this time, there was a knock on the nurse's door. A girl with light brown hair walked in, red shades covering her deep hazel eyes. They almost looked a perfect shade of teal. She also had a cane in her hand with a red dragon's head on top. She wondered in curiously, a large curious grin on her face as she tried to learn what was going on. Karkat continues his grumbling, not letting the nurses touch him.

"Wow, you need to calm the fuck down," The girl blurts. Karkat curses, looking up at her. "...Don't fucking... tell me what to do."

"Look at you, you can barely even speak right now! You must be in a fuckload of pain."

"..."

"Come on, kiddo, just wait for your ambulance."

"...I can't."

"You don't want to? You have to. Do you think I come to the nurse's office every week because I want to?"

Karkat looks over to her cane, and it takes a moment to process. "...I guess not."

Gamzee looked up towards the girl, and she looked back at him. It seemed like the two of them knew each other, although Karkat couldn't guess why.

Karkat's heart felt as if it were about to burst. He was so busy arguing with the girl that he didn't notice the nurses called an ambulance until the paramedics arrived. Before he knew it, he was in a hospital. Him and his foster parents would have a lot of explaining to do.

[End of Chapter 1]


	2. Chapter 2

The amount of bruises and burn marks on Karkat were disturbing. Some of the bruises and burns were new, and when Karkat awoke a woman had entered the room and questioned him about it.

"Mister Vantas, there are a lot of bruises along your body and it is very concerning. May you tell us where they came from?" She asked, politely.

Karkat grumbled quietly. He wondered if she would leave him alone if he faked amnesia. Actually, that would probably make things a lot worse than it would be otherwise. He decided not to tell her the whole truth. A half-truth makes a great lie, after all. "I get picked on at school a lot. What, I thought it would be pretty fucking obvious considering how beat up I was when I got here."

However, the woman persisted. He wasn't sure if she caught on or not. Maybe she did. "Are you sure that it only comes from the kids at school? Or perhaps, is it something more? Rumors have spread of your brother's rather... concerning habits," she states.

"My brother didn't do a fucking THING to hurt me, and if anything happened to him I swear I'll-" the monitor showed an increase in his heart rate. Okay, fuck, he definitely needed to calm down. The therapist in the room with him reaches over, and rubs circles into his back, instructing him to take deep breaths. Karkat listens to her, and it definitely helps.

"I apologize for 'pointing fingers' as you might say. I wasn't trying to suggest that your brother would hurt you on purpose. However, he does have a history of substance abuse and might have done it by accident. Is this true?"

"Of course not. Gamzee knows when enough is enough. Do you really think he would let himself get that bad? The worst that happens is when he takes so much that he acts slow and doesn't really respond. He never hurt me," Karkat replies. He hopes that he didn't give away too much. "He would never hurt me, and he would never hurt himself either. "

The therapist nods, writing down a few things. Karkat frowns, watching her write. He looks over to her ID, and reads her name. Doctor Lalonde. Fuck, this bitch must have PHD in psychiatry or something. "So then, do you have anything you want to talk about? Perhaps the bullies from your school, or maybe something else?"

"Do you honestly think I want to talk to you about my problems? You're a therapist, not my friend. You get paid to try and get into my fucking head, and the most information you can force out of me, the more money you make. You don't listen to me because you care. You listen to me because you fucking have to. Do you honestly think that makes me 'feel' any better about this?"

Rose smiled a little, and he growls under his breath. She wasn't listening to a word he said, was she?

"Mr. Vantas, I think you have the wrong idea about this. My job isn't to get into your head, or try and pry into your secrets. My job is to listen to you, and try to understand what's making you so upset. Would I question you about the bruises if I wasn't worried about them? Money is the last thing that could possibly be on my mind at this point, I assure you."

Karkat sighs a little. Maybe she was right, after all.

[WIP]


End file.
